Dominions 6: EA Machaka Pre-game

EA Machaka: Lion Kings, is a African themed nation with a lot of different tools and utilities. While not the strongest of nations, I find them a ton of fun to play. There are several different strategies to use and a decent variety of troops and magic, while still not feeling unfocused or repetitive. Could be a great beginner nation.
Machaka even has some useable animals (and you can summon them too)!
Come find out if the nation's roar is that of a lion's or a kitten's!
Timestamps:
0:00 - Lore, National Features, and Sites
4:14 - Units and Sacred
12:07 - Heroes, Commanders, and Prophet
42:48 - National Items and Spells
55:54 - Bring It All Together
57:49 - Pretender Design
1:08:38 - Closing Thoughts

[@sgtflintlock6904]

Two key points about Spider Riders that make them better than they look on paper. 1: when a target is webbed, they get an additional protection reduction of 25% to account for the additional chance of finding Gaps. So those fangs will do damage more often than you would think. And 2: the relative size of mount and rider means that most melee attacks from human sized troops can't actually reach the rider, so the lack of armor is mostly a factor against archers.

[@Milorada7375]

Good points. My additional comment from experience from playing them is that it is worth putting them near the front lines and accepting losses to the rider from arrows because the spider will fight on for the rest of the battle and web spit is so valuable. They are much more useful than in Dom 5 now that they are much cheaper. The only unit I still hate and never use is the melee Spider Warrior with no armor

[@BabelBuilder]

Do you happen to have the manual page number with the rules for that? They had a similar thing with fatigue crits, but I know 6 made changes there. Archers are the bane of those guys. NM found it pg.62: "Fatigue plays a large role in enabling armor defeating hits and units that are immobilized or unconscious counts as having 100 fatigue for this purpose. * Protection roll of 2 always results in an armor defeating hit * Protection roll of 3 results in an armor defeating hit against targets with 50 or more fatigue * Protection roll of 4 results in an armor defeating hit against targets with 100 or more fatigue"

[@BabelBuilder]

Spider Warrior+barkskin perhaps?

[@Timlagor]

@@BabelBuilder They definitely look like they'd enjoy a buff (who doesn't?)

[@Milorada7375]

I saw a MA Machaka build with Quiet Stride to give the spies even more stealth so they could put like 10 of them on someone's capital to shut down production by raising unrest over 100. Both ages of Machaka are one of the few nations with sacred spies recruitable in every fort

[@Timlagor]

A Human is always going to be able to patrol you out if they know you're there... but you don't have to stay there of course: whack-a-thug is a hard enough game to play when you can see them and only need to enter their province at the same time!

[@Milorada7375]

@@Timlagor Yes eventually they will patrol out but at 105 stealth with the bless, that requires many units tied down on the capital against a nation without air magic to make birds. In the game I saw this the Machaka player stopped recruitment on Ashdod's capital for several turns because giants do not patrol well for gold per patrol.

[@BabelBuilder]

Man that would just be cruel. We've had a couple streams where I was hitting enemy capitols with >100 unrest and it is brutal (and sometimes we sink them under the waves)!

[@sgtflintlock6904]

MA Machaka also has one of only 2 mage priest spies in the game, which has the side benefit of getting you *all* their scales once you succeed at infiltrating their capital. It's like having your own little Eyes of God running lol.

[@andrewcole4843]

That formations ability for undisciplined on voice of Lion with Dragon Crown item (e.g. with mellow druid) and a pretender designed (rainbow dormant) to allow all of the generic drake summons (including air) in proper formations by mid game was the unique enjoyable challenge I had playing this. Not sure if that can be done sensibly with aiming for the big dragon master spell.

[@BabelBuilder]

Hold and attack rear with some of those drakes it pretty brutal.

[@andrewcole4843]

@@BabelBuilder Absolutely! On such a pretender can also Glam3 for more Magic weapon glamour summons boosters & to use spare gems (given an enlarge bless cross path synergises and allows dragon mastery) and with H1 get winter summoning of unseelie prince to eventually run with despair on top of bewilder/twilight spells etc. Nation is overpowered in Dom6 single player.

[@Lope_Saka]

I just want to give a general thanks to your Dom 6 videos. They've become my one stop shop as a noob to the game. Currently playing EA Machaka and having a grand time thanks to your advice.

[@BabelBuilder]

Your very welcome! What bless did you go with?

[@Lope_Saka]

@@BabelBuilder started pretty basic still learning the ropes. Lord of the Desert Sun, 7 fire, 4 earth, 3 nature. superior morale, reinvigoration, low light vision and larger. building up my lion warriors. still early in the game. got my first throne and seems to be working so far. we'll see!

[@BabelBuilder]

Pretty good generalist bless. Any chance you are going to be able to get underground with the low light?

[@Lope_Saka]

@@BabelBuilder that's the plan! haven't had much luck with the underground up to now.

[@gatovolador7798]

I have never understood why people badmouth Lion Warriors so much. You can expand with them at a breakneck speed even just with a larger bless. 18 invuln. coupled with 29 HP in EA means that they can take lances to the face and just not care. Even if people come at you with magic weapons, 29 hp is still a lot to go through. I have found that they struggle with only 2 things: 1) elves, because of the glamour, which can easily be taken into account via bless (spirit sight or the glamour one). 2) large amounts of chaff due to their low attack densitiy. For that you have your mages; fire evocation will clear that really quick Another thing that people rarely think or talk about is the insane mapmove of machaka. If you just show up with enlarged Lion Warriors, War Lions and Voices of Lion, Lion Kings and Queens, you are MM 20. You can just zip around the map and appear where people don‘t expect. For blesses I tend to go with a Serpent King, larger, enchanted blood and spirit sight or the glamour equivalent without darkvision. If you really want to go all in, all your sacred troops and commanders apreciate recuperation, but it is not needed. With that Lion Warriors will club everything to death, no questions asked. Some notes on mages: Witch Doctors are very good for forging low-level stuff like fire in a jar and have a combat use: barkskin-eagle eyes- banefire darts x3. If something shows up with too much prot or fire res. Lion Queens w/earth boots can throw magma around for the same use case. Boudas can make excellent stealthy raiding parties in hyena form. 3 or 4 of them can take out PD with skellyspam (so another reason to go Ench 5). And having them be heretics in enemy territory is better than having them be at home. They can also join armies of reanimated skeletons and just spam banefire at people. It has a big AoE and doesn‘t care about most defenses. My favourite script for lion queens with fire in a jar is phenix power- flame ward- eagle eyes- falling fires x2. You can and should have 1-2 mages (probably a lion king) cranking out Lion Pelts non-stop. Lion royalty is too valuable to lose to random arrows. Finally the Sorcerer… a G3 random, or even G2 if your god has G3 for the booster, can summon elves for you. You have to do it in a forest, but at Conj4 you get the footsoldiers and at 5 the knights. They are very good summons, although not as easily massable as for MA Machaka. A very good use for glamour gems, which otherwise will just pile up unused. Very stocked for the game🎉🎉

[@BabelBuilder]

I think the Lion warriors just are not as exciting as a lot of other EA sacreds. Its a dude with a club. They do however, perform very well against the right targets. I agree that larger is such a nice budget bless here, especially as it can be hard to get everyone blessed early in expansion. Machaka is a really good nation for crafting for sure!

[@7777Jiggs]

Oh man, I can’t wait!! Love these guys.

[@BabelBuilder]

One of my favorites (well at least for human nations)!

[@Timlagor]

@@BabelBuilder Nice and spicy though the sacreds are rather tough and chewy

[@Timlagor]

Machaka God selection: "Is it a lion?" "...no" "Next!" Fetish says it's made of wood which is why it's not immune to axes (slashing) I don't see Fear working well on a nation that doesn't have mounted Sacreds and has trouble getting the Bless out. By all accounts it's when you have massed Fear on all sides that it becomes overwhelming. It's likely still fine here but I wouldn't expect to see what people have been complaining about.

[@BabelBuilder]

You very well could be right. I did like the bless and don't mind bringing extra Voice of Lions along to bless. Depending on match up fire shield is also a strong contender.

[@Timlagor]

@@BabelBuilder Save the Fear for MA Ermor (and consider increasing the map difficulty)

[@Timlagor]

24:40 In other videos these sacreds are much more survivable than I expected.

[@BabelBuilder]

18 invuln is very high as long as magic weapons are not being used.

[@Timlagor]

@@BabelBuilder Yeah but I always assume there'll be magic weapons!

[@999apeman]

I realize it's kind of a generic concept, but it would kind of fit with the Dominions theme if Hyena Clan becomes the lords of Machaka in Late Age. Since the bouda concept was connected to smithing, maybe they could somehow discover the "lost" blacksteel formula?

[@BabelBuilder]

Well Bouda do have death, so add some blood and they will fit right in with LA.

[@Timlagor]

48:00 Hammer only saves 2 gems total when I tested it so the Bouda would probably be 2+2 and still 1+1 with the hammer.

[@Timlagor]

23:00 the high natural armour on elephants with zero armour pieces also means that the normal protection buffs are no good. Ethereal or Mistform might be scary and Regen is still good.

[@sgtflintlock6904]

Third comment on the same video lol. Can you tell I have a favorite XD? My favorite bless on EA Machaka nowadays is actually Inspirational Leadership. I stack it 3-5 times depending on what else I need to counter with people showing up, and it makes your elephants into terrifying juggernauts instead of borderline liabilities, lets your troops hold the line despite the slightly higher than average casualties, and generally reduces your reliance on your cap by letting your bless help out your any fort line troops as well as any non-mindless summons.

[@BabelBuilder]

I think inspirational leadership is low-key underrated. It is just not flashy and exciting, but it has a large impact.

[@Timlagor]

@@BabelBuilder I really dislike that stacking boring buffs is so effective as a Bless choice

[@sgtflintlock6904]

@@Timlagor I personally think that Inspiration in particular isn't actually a boring buff. It opens up a lot of interesting troop options that are normally dismissed because of moral problems or buffing difficulties.

[@Timlagor]

52:30 You can only cast one copy of a ritual at a given province each turn (think this was a patch change).

[@sgtflintlock6904]

MACHAKAAAAAAAAAAA!

[@Timlagor]

39:00 What would the Queen ever be doing travelling without Sacreds or Spiders or Elephants? I suppose if you accidentally recruited the Queen of the Flaming Pygmies....

[@Timlagor]

20:50 These look like full on (close) ranged support troops. Nice that they can do stuff in melee but rider and mount both have meaningful ranged attacks and neither is particularly tough. The spider is definitely a melee threat and reasonably tough but likely to get repelled by non-webbed things and also likely to take damage. If you have a block of these and someone reached their front you're not going to be miserable for sure. I do feel that all mounted archers and centaurs should have mobile archery (for bows not necessarily javelins) but that's a design decision. [I haven't actually tried playing these so just theorising]

[@BabelBuilder]

I find the spider riders to be pretty versatile. Some combats are won on web alone if things go right.

[@Timlagor]

@@BabelBuilder You don't need high defence or protection if your victi-^H^H^H enemy is webbed

[@Timlagor]

@@BabelBuilder That's MA talk!

[@131scavy]

Babel, did you have an MA Agartha pregame discussion that has disappeared/been hidden? I could have sworn someone did a discussion of them

[@BabelBuilder]

Not I. Only have EA stuff so far. I have mentioned them a time or two since Agartha is one of, or possibly my favorite nation. We only have ~5 EA nations left, so MA is on the horizon.

[@Timlagor]

43:00 Are the summoned elephants free upkeep? Good for demolishing walls? (they eat a lot though) Lions are probably just better value and all the things that would keep your elephant alive work on lions.

[@BabelBuilder]

I think I would go lion for the better combat ability, but siege strength could be a consideration.

[@Merelyfish]

I'm gonna try and miss less streams. Been busy

[@BabelBuilder]

No worries man, life always takes priority. The vods will always be there.

[@Timlagor]

35:55 I'm pretty certain the "bou" in "Bouda" is pronounced "bow" ..yeah that wasn't helpful; bow like a deferential greeting or the bough of a tree. Rhymes with "Ow!" (that hurt) Not goo or slow.

[@BabelBuilder]

Illwinter needs to patch in pronunciation guides!

[@user-wg1fp4zn6s]

Im sure if we ever get LA machaka they gonna become full wakanda 😂

[@BabelBuilder]

Let's be real if its LA, you know its going to be blood, death and going back to EA.

[@AAX11111]

Will be honest. Gonna talk your ear off once we get to LA Pythium.

[@BabelBuilder]

!remind me in 2 years ;)

[@AAX11111]

@@BabelBuilder If i am still here, yeah i sure will. Literally fav nation with my fav chassis. I must be an idiot to like them since they suck so bad.

[@sevareth7371]

@@AAX11111 Gift of Reason Daughter of Typhon is my absolute favorite. And Hydra Spam. Human troops? never heard of em

[@werotan]

I don't know why you want summon eath when you have strength of Gaia on those...

[@Timlagor]

Reinvigoration

[@BabelBuilder]

Tim got it. You can still Strength of Gaia too, the only consideration would be if timing or script length was an issue. Getting extra reinvigoration is really nice.